Author's Note: Due to a test that needs to be run at the hospital, I have been awake for many more hours than I would have previously considered healthy. While this does mean that I had a lot of time for writing, I would rather not have had the time, given the circumstances. Here's hoping everything turns out okay for the tests (heart issues). The actual testing happens today.
Thank you everyone for your reviews - they're great to get and excellent motivation to work harder and faster on the next chapter.
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Chapter Twenty Six: Forgiveness and the Unforgiven
Harry and Hermione were walking hand in hand down the halls towards the breakfast hall when they noticed the first signs of something strange - there were students all through the halls, most of them looking quite pale, and several of them pointing at Harry and whispering to themselves.
"Harry! Hermione!" Both turned quickly at the sound of Ron's voice calling to them, and they turned in surprise to find him barreling down the corridor, knocking people aside to get to them as fast as he could. He had a rolled up copy of the Daily Prophet in his hand, and Luna was right behind him with a copy of a special edition of the Quibbler.
"You read this yet, Harry?" Harry turned so quickly from Ron and Luna that he felt a little dizzy to find Colin running up to him with another copy of the Prophet in his hands. Again, he didn't have the chance to reply before three other members of the DA thrust more copies at him, and Hermione took one of them for herself to scan the headlines.
"Might I have a word with you for a moment, Mr. Potter?" Harry looked up blankly from the pile of papers that had accumulated in his hands to find their Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts standing in front of him, the hood to his cloak concealing all but his brown eyes, as usual. "Bring a copy of that news thing you have there... it is important."
"Sir, can I..." Hermione started, but Talisien shook his head to cut her off.
"This is something I must speak with him about alone, Ms. Granger," he replied easily. "If he choses to share the information with you later, then I will not fault him." He then caught Harry beneath the arm and started walking swiftly with him down the halls to the first empty classroom, students parting before them like water on a cliff, before she could make any other objection.
He motioned to two empty chairs, and Harry sat down without thinking about it. He and Hermione had ended up sleeping in by a few minutes that morning, and it looked like something big had happened in the news last night. That rarely meant good things, especially given how several members of the DA had come up to him...
"Would you rather read the article or simply hear what happened from me?" Talisien asked calmly as he took a seat across from Harry and took his hood down slowly. Harry looked up and found his eyes drawn to the scars along the elf's cheek, but didn't say anything. "How about you take a moment to read it, then?"
He nodded and looked down to the paper again, unrolling it and opening it to the front page. Glaring back at him were dozens of small pictures, all put together into one large, twisted mural of horrible faces. Death Eaters, all of them. The large headlines across the top thankfully drew his attention away from them.
Largest Breakout in Azkaban History: Dementors Defect to Side of You-Know-Who
Feeling sick without reading any more than he already had, he dropped the paper and looked up to his teacher. "Breakout?" he asked in a whisper. "How many in all?"
"Almost fourty this time," Talisien replied, his voice still relatively calm. "Including those captured at the end of last year."
"Malfoy?"
"Yes."
Harry groaned and cupped his head in his hands. "Why didn't they just give them all the kiss?" he thought out loud. "Why didn't they just kill them? Didn't we all know that it was only a matter of time before they broke out again?"
"You would see them executed, then?"
Harry looked up in surprise at the tone in the elf's voice suddenly. "Is that so wrong?" he asked quietly. "Do you have any idea how many people they'll kill on their own, now that they're out?"
"Could you kill them? Given the chance, no questions asked, could you do it?"
Harry swallowed hard and closed his eyes. The idea of being forced by destiny and fate to become a murderer already wasn't sitting well with him. He could barely believe he had even considered just killing the lot of them... that wasn't him. He couldn't even see himself killing one man... "No," he whispered.
"Good," Talisien replied calmly again. "Good. The taking of a life is never something to be taken lightly, Harry. You would do well to remember that."
"I know," Harry said quickly. "Not that that does me any good," he added after a moment. "It's not like I have any choice in the matter, after all."
Talisien looked at the young human for a moment as though considering him, and then stood up and turned around, facing the wall. "Let me tell you a short story, Harry," he suggested softly. "I'll skim over the details... but it is important for you to hear."
"A... alright."
"A long time ago, before you humans began to record your histories, and long before the time of magic wands, there was a great war. One elf in particular stood out in the war, as he was especially savage. It is reported that he would kill anyone who got in his way - friend or foe alike. And he did, too. Countless innocent people lost their lives to the edge of his blade or the power of his magics."
When Talisien's voice died down for a moment, Harry sat up. "Who was he?" he asked. "And what happened to him? Was he on the right side, or the wrong side?"
"That, young Harry, is not a question I can answer," Talisien sighed, turning back to him. "All I can tell you is what happened to him. He fought long and hard, and eventually found his way to the front of the great war. Under his leadership, the united races of humans, elves, and cat-people managed to defeat their oppressors, but such a thing came with a terrible cost. This terrifying elf who held so much power... he was killed in the battle."
"That's good, right?"
"No, Harry," Talisien said softly. "No, it wasn't good. Powerful and terrible though he may have been, he still fought for the side of good - even if it was for the wrong reasons. Vengeance is never the right reason to fight. But in the end, it wasn't his power or the fear he instilled in people that ended the war. Do you know what was?"
Harry shook his head as he wracked his brain for an appropriate answer. "No."
"This elf was in love, Harry. It was his love for a woman - a human woman - that both lead to the end of the war, and unfortunately his own downfall."
"His love killed him?"
Talisien smiled sadly as he shook his head and sat down again. "Some say so," he admitted. "But more likely, he was killed because of his power, because of the fear he passed onto people. No one else would fight near him... he was always alone on the battlefield. While he was a match that could not be beaten - or so everyone thought - he was a mortal elf, and eventually, a fatal blow was struck."
"What happened to the woman, then?" Harry asked despite himself. He really wanted to know why he was being told a story like this (and, to be truthful, part of him felt it was just Talisien's way of trying to keep his mind off the Death Eaters), but he couldn't ask that.
"No one knows," he whispered as he hung his head. "But do you see what I'm trying to tell you, Harry?" He didn't give him a chance to answer before he went on. "This elf believed in death and in killing those who stood against him. Anyone who got in his way, rather than just moving or avoiding them, he would kill them. Even though, in the end, he was fighting for a love that few could ever understand, especially given that he had slept with an elven woman the night before the final battle, he paid for his beliefs of death with his own."
"I don't plan on going to kill all the Death Eaters in my way, Talisien," Harry said softly, not meeting the elf's eye now. "I don't know if I'll be able to bring myself to kill Voldemort, let alone anyone else, so you don't have to worry about that."
"No?" Talisien asked. He sounded slightly surprised by that. "Well... good. I assumed, by your earlier statement, that you thought just killing the lot of them would be for the best."
"If they die, then they deserved it," Harry said, closing his eyes. "But it won't be by my hand. I don't want to be a murderer, but I have no choice."
"Am I a murderer, Harry?"
"What?"
"You already know that I killed my own Dark Lord centuries ago, remember? Does that make me a murderer?" Harry looked at him in surprise - he had let that fact evade him, actually. He had never looked at the proud, noble elf as a murderer of any kind, even though he had seen him kill three Death Eaters right in front of him when they had first met.
"I don't know..."
"Care to take a guess at how many people I've killed, Harry?" When Harry made no attempts, Talisien smiled weakly and leaned back in his chair. "Would you believe four thousand, three hundred and twenty seven?"
"That many?" Harry asked in amazement. That was more people that went to Hogwarts... more people than he suspected he had ever seen in his entire life. "How? Why? And why did you keep track like that?"
Talisien shook his head and stood up again, turning his back on the student once more. "Those are difficult questions," he said. "A life is a terrible thing to waste - even if it is a life of wrong. There are many ways to be a killer, Harry. You could fight on a battlefield or in a one-on-one duel. You could sneak in someplace to assassinate someone, or pay for it to be done. You could demand a death for justice's sake, or you could slaughter someone in a blinding rage. There's always the whole self-defense thing, and then there's murder, as you call it - a planned killing for your own sake. Or, the worst of all, you could kill someone accidentally."
Harry said nothing in response to Talisien's point. He wanted to say something, to ask anything, to get away from the topic of death and killing, but somehow, no words came to him when he wanted them.
"How many different ways do you think I killed people, Harry?"
"Of those nine ways?"
"Yes."
He thought for a moment. "Four."
"Try eight of them," Talisien replied. "Almost three thousand of those I killed, I did so on a battlefield. I was a force to be feared like the elf in the story - though I fought with people, and not alone. More than thirty were through one-on-one combat. I have assassinated more people than I care to admit - though to be fair, they were all assassins themselves, and I was doing my job as a ranger (what you might call an Auror). I am a ruler, so I have called for multiple executions, and, let's face it, how could I not have faced a few attacks on my life that ended with the other person's death, given my position? In that position, I have also paid a few rangers to kill certain people - again, mostly assassins themselves, though a few murderers ranked high enough as well - though that was not an easy decision for me to reach." He looked away again and sighed. "And I slaughtered the group of thugs who raped and killed a close friend of mine's child. It was neither fast nor painless - just the way I intended it. The only way I managed to sleep that night was Fey's assurances that I was performing an act of justice... though it still doesn't feel that way when I think about them, begging for their lives."
"That's seven," Harry pointed out softly when Talisien trailed off and the silence became heavy in the room. "When did you murder someone?"
"I didn't," the elf replied. "Murder implies you are killing someone for your own benefit, and no one else's - I have never done that. I have, however, killed someone by mistake. That is the one death that I caused that still haunts me to this day... four hundred years later."
"I'm sure it was just an accident," Harry offered to try and appease the elf. "You didn't mean it to happen."
"And that helps, does it? `Oh, I'm sorry I killed your son, it was a mistake.' " Talisien shook his head and stood up again. He seemed somewhat restless and off centre - he obviously didn't want to be having this conversation at all. "That wasn't going to cut it then, and it wouldn't do it now, either." He stopped suddenly, and looked back to Harry. "Let's get back on track, shall we? Why do you think I'm telling you this?"
"Do you feel bad about those you killed in battle?"
"Yes," Talisien said without batting an eye. "That makes it natural. I don't feel bad that I was protecting those I care about, and fighting for something I know was right, though. I did what was necessary. There's only one death I don't feel bad about, and that's the Dark Lord... Nogar Derm."
At the sound of the name, the room suddenly felt heavy and the torches that were lit flickered and died in a gust of freezing wind. Just as suddenly, however, the thickness of the air lifted and the torches lit once again, casting everything into light and shadows as it was beforehand.
"So... you're saying I shouldn't feel bad about having to kill Voldemort? That that won't make me a murderer?"
"Would you be doing it for yourself, or for those around you?"
Harry thought for a moment before replying. "Both."
"Then that would put you on the same level as those in the past, faced with the same difficult decision. I decision that I, too, had to make once," Talisien said calmly, putting a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Just remember, Harry. When in the middle of a war, in the middle of a battle, there are two type of people at the end of the day - those that are alive, and those that aren't. You do what you have to to make sure that you are one of the first, and your friends are with you. Beyond that, there's nothing else you can do."
"Thank you... sir," Harry said, standing and holding out a hand to Talisien. The elf looked down at the hand for a moment before reaching out to clasp it in his brown gauntlet covered hand. "Thank you."
"Anytime, Mr. Potter. Anytime," he said firmly, releasing his hand and pulling his hood back up. "Now, I would suggest you find your friends and your mate before they start... what was that term... `going spare?' Breakfast is still being served, after all, and no doubt they will want to talk with you." He stopped again at the door and turned back. "Be ready for class this afternoon, Harry. It will be an interesting one."
"Sir?"
"Yes, Harry?"
"Who was that elf, anyway?"
Harry could see the twinkle in the brown eyes beneath the hood of the Wanderer - and pulled up his own hood at the thought of it. "Well, Harry... that was my grandfather."
He didn't have another chance to ask anything else, which was just as well, given that he wasn't sure what he could have asked, really. The matter of the escaped Death Eaters was still fresh on his mind, and he still had no idea what they could do about it - if anything, really - so he did the only thing he could think of doing.
Rather than follow Talisien's advice, Harry decided to skip breakfast and return to the Gryffindor common room through any and all side routes he could think of. He didn't really want to deal with the crowded Great Hall, and wasn't that hungry any more anyway, so he figured it wasn't going to be a problem. He didn't have classes in the morning on Tuesdays anyway. So far the term was going quite well, as Potions had been cancelled on Monday, and Tuesday only held the one Defense class after lunch, so he could avoid as many people as possible.
He said the password to the fat lady (Destiny Changes), who nodded grimly to him and swung open easily. Walking inside in sort of a daze still, he barely registered that there was anyone else in the large, comfortable room before plopping himself down in a chair by the fireplace.
The startled cries brought him out of his reverie, and he looked up in shock to find Ginny pulling her robes closed tightly as Colin backed up so fast that he thought the poor boy might fall into the fireplace.
"H... Ha... Harry!" Ginny managed to squeal, her breath coming in short, fast gasps. "What are you doing here?"
"I'd ask you the same thing, but I'm not sure if I want to know," he replied with a grin. It was the first he had worn since Ron and Luna had first yelled at him that morning, and it actually felt good. "I suppose the better question would be why aren't you two in class, hmm?"
"Uh... we were given the morning off?" Colin asked hopefully. He shrunk back again under Harry's questioning gaze, and looked away quickly.
"Celebrating," Ginny said after a moment.
"Celebrating?" Harry asked in amazement. "Today? Gin, don't you read the news? How could you possibly celebrate today?"
"Well, excuse me, Harry!" she said back quickly. "I did read the news, yes, and I'm no happier about that than anyone else in the school save the Slytherins!"
"So?"
She pulled herself up in the chair across from him and slouched down in it before moving the sash aside from her robe to reveal the badge pinned there. Harry saw the green oak leaf badge for the DA, but there was also a larger silver crest-shaped badge above it with a small `P' inscribed upon it.
"Dumbledore told us this morning during breakfast. Hermione and my brother knew last night, but didn't say anything - I guess the headmaster asked them to wait until today for him to tell each of us personally."
"Congratulations," Harry said with a small grin as he leaned back in his chair again. "Both of you, well done." His grin then spread a bit as something in his head clicked. "So, as your first act as the new Prefects for Gryffindor, you skive off classes to come up here and snog each other senseless?"
"You know, it sounds so much worse when you say it like that, Harry."
Harry couldn't keep the laugh out of his voice when he spoke next. "True, but you both had it coming. What if Ron came back and found you like that? Just because you two skivved off doesn't mean we all have to - some of us don't actually have morning classes on Tuesday or Thursday."
"We figured he'd be in the Great Hall for a while still," Ginny replied.
"He's talking to Neville and Dean about how to handle their teams with the Death Eater thing. He wants everyone to focus of the fact that, of the fourty who escaped, eighteen of them are dead already."
"What?" Harry demanded, sitting upright in his chair to face both of them in surprise. "Say that again!"
"It... it was in the Prophet, Harry," Colin ventured. "Didn't you read it through?"
"I skimmed the cover," he admitted.
"The second page covered how eighteen of the Death Eaters were dead when they landed on the shore. They were the full group that had been captured over the holidays... apparently, the Dark Mark was used to point out their location, which only means one thing."
Neither said it, but they didn't have to, either. Voldemort was not happy with their failure, and ensured that such a thing would never happen again.
There was a long silence before Harry spoke again, during which time Colin had taken up a seat on the armrest of Ginny's chair. "Ron's having the teams deal with this on their own, then?"
"Yeah. He said - only after Hermione suggested it to him, I'm sure - that we need the meeting time for work. Now that the dementors have defected to You-Know-Who..."
"Voldemort," Harry interrupted Colin, causing both of them to shudder slightly. "Alright, next meeting, I'm saying the name a hundred times, just to make you all stop being so afraid of the bloody name," he muttered under his breath. In a normal voice, he continued. "We need the time to work on the Patronus this time, right?"
"We did stop last year having just touched on it."
The memory of the house elf Dobby tugging on his pant leg and trying to tell him about Umbridge without actually telling him about her came unbidden to Harry's mind. He shut the memory down before it could get to Dumbledore's ejection from the school, and simply nodded.
"On that note," Harry said as he stood up. "I'm going to head down to the kitchens for a quick bite to eat."
"Don't get caught, Harry," Ginny suggested to him. "Filch has been lurking around that painting, hoping to catch students sneaking in lately."
"I won't," he promised with a nod. "But make sure you follow your own advice." He smiled to himself as he turned to leave. "Oh, and Colin, you might want to make sure none of Gin's lip stuff's on your cheek by the time Ron gets here."
Although she didn't wear makeup persay - given that, in the wizarding world, such thing was done with spells rather than materials - she had apparently cast a charm on her lips that was something similar, as there were small lip prints all over Colin's cheeks. He didn't have to turn around to know that the boy was rubbing his face furiously in an attempt to hide the evidence in case Ron showed up suddenly.
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"What is it, Harry?" Hermione asked when he suddenly stopped just inside the classroom to their Defense Against the Dark Arts. Peering around his still form, she couldn't help the gasp that escaped past her lips. Aside from the Wanderer - who she had expected to either see sitting down waiting for them or doing something of the sort at least - there was also a large glass tank that held an enormous spider inside.
But it wasn't even the spider that had startled her. Instead, it was the cloud... or maybe it was just a mist... regardless, it was the shape of brilliant green energy that was hovering in the air in the middle of the room. Harry was looking at it with wide eyes, and she had no question as to just why.
This was the same brilliant green that she had seen for the first time in her fourth year, when the fake Professor Moody had cast the Killing Curse on the small spider. The same brilliant green that she knew could haunt her boyfriend's nightmares for the rest of his life easily.
It was as though the Killing Curse was just hovering in the room, waiting for them.
Ron's horrified gibberish was what actually broke the mood that Harry's shock had caused, and let everyone else in the advanced class enter the room. Harry, while still moving slowly, had followed Hermione as she lead him by the hand to stand a little closer to the Wanderer. He had told her all about what the elf had told him, and she knew she'd have to thank him later for it - Harry had been so worried about being a murderer before, but now, that fear seems to have left him, at least slightly.
Luna managed to guide Ron into the room after about five minutes of her coaxing from the doorway, during which time several of the others had a laugh at his expense.
"Voldemort."
Everyone froze - including Ron - until they heard the Wanderer stand up slowly and deliberately and walk towards them. He stopped in the middle of the room, just before the mist of green energy. It was then that he lifted a hand towards the door and it banged shut loudly at the same time as he lowered his hood.
"Does such a name scare you?" Talisien asked them in a hushed tone. "Does the mere mention of the name of the dark wizard that you are so scared of send shivers down your spine? If I said it again, who hear could stand before me and repeat it?"
"Voldemort," Harry said after a moment of silence. He wasn't sure what their professor was up to, but he wasn't going to sit back and do nothing at all. He saw - out of the corner of his eye, anyway - a couple of the others shudder slightly again.
"Voldemort," Hermione repeated, looking first to Harry and then to Talisien again. Like Harry, she had no idea what the point of this small exercise was, but she, too, wouldn't just sit back.
To everyone's surprise, it was Neville who said it next, followed quickly by Ron. Before anyone else had a chance to speak - though it didn't look like anyone else was even considering it - Talisien cut them all off. "Did anyone else notice that? Nothing happened when you said his name. No curses... no dark power... nothing. It appears that most of you would do well to remember what a mere name can do to you, the next time you wish to laugh at another's fear."
There was a murmured apology given to Ron, who laughed it off nervously as he looked back to the giant spider again. That one made Aragog look almost small by comparison, and it was hard to tell just how the elf had managed to get it to fit in the classroom at all, let alone subdued in a glass cage.
"So why is that spider here?" Hermione asked.
"And what's with that light?" Susan added, looking at the energy with more apprehension that the spider. She had seen the way Harry had looked at it, and if he was scared, then she figured there was probably good reason to be.
"I'll answer those backwards," Talisien said as he motioned behind him. "The green energy - or light - is actually a very complex spell taken apart. This is the essence behind one of the worse spells to ever have been created amongst humans."
"Avada Kedavra."
Harry's whisper cut him off, and he looked over to him and nodded. "Indeed. The Killing Curse. Avada Kedavra. Of course, this couldn't kill you the way it is now," Talisien added. As though to prove his point, he waved a hand through the energy.
Although nothing happened to Talisien, no one had really been prepared for the scream of power that suddenly echoed through the room. Hermione looked to Harry in surprise - he had explained the killing curse before as a scream of energy, but she hadn't though he was being literal about it!
"This is an incomplete spell," Talisien offered. "It holds a great deal of power to do... well... not a lot, actually. It does not hold the malice or hatred required in the spell of death. This is the spell you would cast if you attempted to use your worst Unforgivable Curse without the proper emotion behind it."
"Why are you teaching us how to cast the killing curse properly, Talisien?" Dean asked in surprise. "I mean, it is Unforgivable, right? It's not like we'll ever end up using them."
"What happened this morning, Dean?"
"The Azkaban breakout," he replied to the teacher almost instantly. "Where..."
"And what is going on in your world right now? What is the biggest fear of the wizarding world today?"
"It's the dark wizard You-Know..."
"Voldemort!" Talisien cut him off in a loud voice. "Voldemort," he repeated, stressing the name loudly. "Is the cause of your fear. Voldemort will not hesitate to kill you, or anyone else. Voldemort doesn't care if this is an Unforgivable Curse, now does he?"
"No, sir."
"It's Talisien, Dean," the elf said in a softer tone before turning around and walking slowly - so they could follow his movement for once - to the large tank that held the spider. "But you are right. He will not hesitate. If you ever came face to face with him, most of you have few chances of survival. I am teaching you one of them today."
"If we can distract him from his hatred, then the killing curse won't work, will it?" Hermione asked in surprise.
"Ten points to Gryffindor, Hermione," Talisien said with a nod. "But how would you do that?" A silence followed his words, during which time, the elf walked around behind the tank and tapped on the glass, drawing the spider's gaze. "If any of you ever figure out how to rob an enemy of their hatred, I ask that you tell me as soon as you can. It is a puzzle I have been working on for centuries."
"Then why would..." Pavarti started, but her sister cut her off.
"This is a theory, then, right?" Padma asked in surprise. "One that might give us a chance, if we can think of something, because otherwise, it's unblockable, right?"
"Ten points to Ravenclaw, Padma."
Everyone leapt back quickly when the glass in front of the tank holding the spider suddenly shattered. With a scuttle of legs, the tremendous spider shot forward, right into the ball of green mists.
The terrifying scream echoed through the room again as it took hold of the spider, and several of them ended up covering their ears so they wouldn't have to listen to it continuing. After almost a full minute, the spider collapsed beneath the cloud of power, writhing on the ground as though in terrible pain.
"There is a downfall to being hit by an incomplete spell, nonetheless," Talisien's voice sounded eerily calm given the screams that they had just been put through. "It will be more pain than many people can handle. But it is not fatal to a strong will." As he stepped out from behind the broken glass, he waved his hand towards the bright green light, and it vanished. Before the spider could move, he turned towards it. "Liate gadise."
Without warning, the twitching spider suddenly stopped moving entirely, and slumped to the ground as though made out of putty. When the class looked back to their professor, he had his hood back up again as though trying to hide more than just his identity - like he didn't want them to see the effects of the spell he had just muttered had on him.
"Now then, I would like everyone to..." Talisien stopped suddenly when a black falcon shot in the open window and landed on his shoulder. He turned to it, even as it started squawking to him. He tensed without any warning, and then screamed. Rather than the high pitched scream they had been subject to a moment ago, however, this scream was deeper, and held a terrifying anger and fear within it.
Before anyone could move, the Wanderer was enveloped in flames and vanished the moment the flames had leapt up to surround him. The entire group was completely still until a small clattering sound caught their collective attentions.
On the ground, where Talisien had been standing, was a small red and grey stone with a black symbol emblazed upon it - the symbol of Talisien. Ron was the first to recover from the shock, surprisingly, as he stepped forward to pick it up.
"This is the same thing that I found outside of Harry's house over the summer, and Dumbledore said was very good news," he said softly, turning to look at Harry, Hermione, and Luna specifically.
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"And that's it?"
"Yes, Ron. That's it," Harry said, looking at Hermione and Luna with a soft smile on his face. "Unless you count the part where the falcon called you an ugly git..."
"What?" It was amazing how easy it was to get Ron's face to match the colour of his hair still, despite how much Luna seemed to have been able to calm him down.
"Ronald, dear, I believe Harry was just joking," Luna's dreamy voice pulled Ron back to his senses faster than anything Harry could have said, and especially faster than anything Hermione had come up with.
"Harry?" Ron asked, stopping the four in the middle of the corridor before the Great Hall. They had been taking a short walk after the DA meeting had ended, and Harry had finally found the chance to tell them what the bird had said - and for some reason, neither Ron nor Luna found it odd that he could understand the falcon.
He sighed and rolled his eyes to Hermione, who swatted him on the arm. "All he said was that the forest was under attack by men in black robes, and Fey needed him."
"So he'll be alright?"
"Unless Voldemort himself is marching an army against him, which isn't going to happen. He probably just sent a few Death Eaters in an attempt to scare the elves. I suspect he'll find more resistance than he bargained for," Harry reassured Ron at the same time as reassuring himself.
Hermione looked up at the large clock in the Great Hall and suddenly blanched. "Harry, Luna, you've got to get back to your dorms! It's past light's out! Ron and I'll be fine, since we've got to do rounds tonight anyway, but..."
He nodded simply and stepped back so he was next to Luna. "I'll make sure she gets back," he said simply with a nod to Ron. Ron nodded in return, and then he and Hermione started off in the opposite direction of both common rooms before either Harry or Luna moved at all.
Harry turned to Luna, to find her staring back at him with her protubrant eyes. "Would you mind going for a short walk first, Harry?"
Although he knew that Hermione would likely scold him later for breaking school rules - she did most of the time he did, anyway - for some reason, he didn't want to say no to Luna. She seemed worried about something suddenly, and he wanted to do what he could to alleviate that concern. "Sure thing, Luna. Just lead the way."
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Until the sun sets upon a broken world...
The Shadows
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